Passive House

"Passive House" is an ultra efficient building standard that saves up to 90% on your heating bills and ensures your house is always at an indoor temperature of 20deg C with an extremely high level of air quality.​

Passive House is fast becoming the leading energy efficiency and comfort standard for all building types across the world. It truly makes no sense anymore to build anything less. Passive House is very achievable and is actually a very cost effective way to build.

This 20 year-old concept has been achieved in over 20,000 projects, from multi-family units to assisted living facilities, low income housing to condo developments and commercial properties to schools. And yes, you can also apply the standard to houses - both existing and new-build.​

As fully certified Passive House Consultants, the team at Comfort Solutions Ireland can help you to realise your dream of a home that is super comfortable to live in, yet extremely inexpensive to run. Contary to popular belief, it is also inexpensive to build a Passive House but watch out for builders who don't have the relevant experience and charge more to compromise for the shortfall. A house built to Passive House standards should cost no more than 5 - 10% more than any well built house built to current Building Regulation standards. This is a fact and has been proven time and again. Furthermore, this extra cost is far outweighed by the ongoing savings in heating bills, even taking mortgage interest into account.

A Passive House requires as little as 10% of the heating and cooling energy used by more typical buildings – this is a reduction of up to 90%! In terms of heating oil, Passive Houses use less than 1.5 litres per square metre of floor area. While Passive House buildings are held up to stringent quality criteria, the concept itself is very flexible and can be adapted to a variety of building uses and almost any building style. As the Passive House concept is based on physical principles, each building can and should be adapted to its particular climate and Ireland is no different. Call us today to find out more or discuss why you should be considering Passive House or read on for some more slightly technical information.

Criteria for Passive House:

1. Space Heating Demand should not exceed 15kWh/m2/year. This means that for every square metre of usable floor space, it should take no more than 15kWh to heat it for a full year!ORBuilding Heating Load not to exceed 10W/m2 in peak demand

In climates where active cooling is needed, the Space Cooling Energy Demand requirement roughly matches the heat demand requirements above, with a slight additional allowance for dehumidification. This is less relevant in Ireland.

* The above energy demands are calculated using special Passive House Planning Software

3. Airtightness must be a maximum of 0.6 ACH50 (Air changes per hour @ a pressure of 50 Pascals) This is verified on site by pressure tests with the building put into both pressurised and depressurised states.

4. Thermal Comfort must be met for all living areas year round with not more than 10% of the hours in any given year over 25 deg celcius. In Ireland, we can push to have this brought to below 5%.

All of the above criteria are achieved through intelligent design and implementation of Passive House principles of which there are five. See below.

Passive House Principals:

1. High quality insulation

2. Superior windows

3. Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery

4. Airtight construction.

5. Thermal bridge free design

Thermal insulationAll opaque building components of the exterior envelope of the house must be very well-insulated. For most cool-termperate climates, this means a heat transfer coefficient (U-value) of 0.15 W/(m²K) at the most, i.e. a maximum of 0.15 watts per degree of temperature difference and per square metre of exterior surface are lost.

Passive House windowsThe window frames must be well insulated and fitted with low-e glazings filled with argon or krypton to prevent heat transfer. For most cool-termperate climates, this means a U-value of 0.80 W/(m²K) or less, with g-values around 50% (g-value= total solar transmittance, proportion of the solar energy available for the room).

Ventilation heat recoveryEfficient heat recovery ventilation is key, allowing for a good indoor air quality and saving energy. In Passive House, at least 75% of the heat from the exhaust air is transferred to the fresh air again by means of a heat exchanger.

Airtightness of the buildingUncontrolled leakage through gaps must be smaller than 0.6 of the total house volume per hour during a pressure test at 50 Pascal (both pressurised and depressurised).

Absence of thermal bridgesAll edges, corners, connections and penetrations must be planned and executed with great care, so that thermal bridges can be avoided. Thermal bridges which cannot be avoided must be minimised as far as possible.

Talk to us today to find out more about Passive House; we can help make your dream a reality.

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Client Testimonials

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Sean & Ann Tarmey, Ballintober

We found the house was difficult to heat and it became cold very quickly. Since the external wall insulation, attic insulation and new windows were installed, we have a much warmer comfortable home, and are making huge savings on our fuel bill. The colour render we chose on the exterior... Read more

Padraig and Margaret Doyle, Ba

We had external wall insulation installed on our detached bungalow and had an attic insulation upgrade during the summer of 2017. We are very pleased with the results as our house is now much cosier in winter time and holds the heat for much longer after the heating switches off... Read more

Audrey Ní Fhearghail and Lorca

The external insulation that Comfort Solutions Ireland installed for us has made a huge difference to how warm our house is. From the start of the process, they proved to be professional and easy to deal with.

Brendan Coyne, Castlebar

Anonymous, newport

I decided to have the insulation of my 2005 built house checked after finding it difficult to keep the rooms warm during the bad winter of 2015/16. Draughts, cold spots and a boiler that was always on the go meant it was time to do something.

David & Margaret Edis, Glenhes

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I found Comfort Solutions through their web site. I contacted them and they came very quickly to give a quote on the day and at the time that was requested. Our loft although lagged was not up to current specifications. After some discussion we decided to just have our... Read more

Eithne O' Malley, Louisburgh

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We had our attic insulated last year by Comfort Solutions and have been more than happy with the results.

Dr. Roderick Peters, Newport

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In the Spring of 2013, Comfort Solutions installed external wall and loft insulation at the home I had recently bought. Before the installation, I had been concerned at how quickly the house could become cold and damp.

Happy Customer, Westport

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The advice I received from Comfort Solutions was excellent. We opted for the cavity wall filling and loft insulation. Quality of materials and workmanship, I couldn't fault. Since their work, I would estimate that we are saving about 30% on our fuel bills and have a... Read more